Comments on Orange County Memories: Back When Brea Was a Small Town

Your next assignment. I failed PE for not shaving ...

2010-02-08T20:28:34.495-08:00

Your next assignment. I failed PE for not shaving my mustache and side burns but did play varsity basketball. Dress code would not allow shoulder length hair, sideburns below the middle of the ear nor mustaches and beards. Staff enforced the dress code at the photographer’s room for Sr. picture day. I was not allowed in. Saturday was make up day for pictures and no staff was around. They took my Sr. picture. The annual was completed and guess who’s picture was the first student to have a mustache and long hair and sideburns in the Brea Olinda H.S. annual?
Clue, Mr. Putnum did not like it at all.

Mom grew up on Shell lease up Site Dr. Dad lifegua...

2010-02-03T22:25:09.725-08:00

Mom grew up on Shell lease up Site Dr. Dad lifeguard at plunge in 1936. Summer job in H.S. Me and my Brother and Sister 2nd generation Brea schools. My two boy's 3rd. generation Brea schools. Use to ride the cows for fun where Brea mall is today. Rabbit hunt behind Brea Jr. High. Had many a beer at Sam's place. All changed now that the rich and famous moved in. Feel like a stranger in my own town. Sad.

how about the HELMS BAKERY MAN???? Gene Xenos wa...

2010-01-27T21:56:24.644-08:00

how about the HELMS BAKERY MAN???? Gene Xenos was his name he had the best doughnuts and macaroons!!! I loved it when he would pull the drawers out and we could pick out a glazed doughnut!!!!

your family might have bought THE HUB from my gran...

2010-01-27T21:54:12.783-08:00

your family might have bought THE HUB from my grandparents Frank and Velma Bickel!!! We ate there almost evry Sunday after church! The old Hub turned into a plumbing store and the KFC was on the corner and they both are no longer there just a parking lot! My family is still here and I have just recently noved back! Glad I have all my good memories to share with my friends family and my kids and grandkids!!!

Brea was way out in the country to me as a little ...

2009-12-29T11:23:19.731-08:00

Brea was way out in the country to me as a little boy living in Garden Grove.Brea in 1955 was where my family bought a resturant called The Hub across the street from the park with the swimming pool. Carly's husband may have eaten at our resturant, at the counter with round bar stools or in one of the booths with red and white table cloths, breakfast, lunch or dinner. Burgers came in a red basket lined with wax paper with chips.
My dad Dick Williams would take me to work with him sometimes and let me help wash the dishes. Our family, The Crew, would make up brown bag lunches by the dozens to be picked up by the oil industry workers every morning heading off to work. Also they would make and deliver lunches to the Brea City Council meetings.
I loved to go across the street to the park and swim and splash in the pool. I had my first experience jumping off a high dive board there when I was five years old in 1955. What a rushing drop that was!
We lived in Garden Grove and drove up Harbor through Fullerton and Hillcrest Park to get to Brea and the resturant. Two lane roads in the country all the way there with orange trees everywhere. Now I hear it has changed into another, different city. I drove thru Brea somethimg ago and noticed that where our resturant used to be is now a KFC. If anyone remembers the Hub Resturant please post a memory.

Remember the term " Guada La Harbra?

2009-11-02T10:34:03.653-08:00

Remember the term " Guada La Harbra?

I too remember Brea as a small town. I did not gr...

2009-05-29T11:52:50.929-07:00

I too remember Brea as a small town. I did not grow up there but I spent 21 years in Brea and loved the quaint small town feel of yesterday. I am sorry to say it is gone and Brea just does not have the same appeal to us. It has grown so much that you cannot tell when one town starts and the other ends. My husband and I went back to visit a couple of years ago and we were sad to see that everything in the town looks just like every other town. I miss the Jeanne's Yardage, the Sam's Place, the Alpha Beta and Kap n Keg. I remember the folks that started these stores, they were warm and genuine with true family values. Gone are the days of the kids riding their bikes down Impreial Hwy to the creek to catch crawdads. My husband grew up in Brea and he has wonderful stories to tell about this old town. I guess one might say that progress is not always such a great thing.

I grew up in SOCAL. I lived in Brea during my hig...

2009-04-21T12:58:00.000-07:00

I grew up in SOCAL. I lived in Brea during my high school years. Back in the '60s Brea was a town that was full of people that worked in the oil industry. I've moved to Illinois when my Navy hitch ended in 1977.

In 2005, I visited a couple of old high school chums. David is now living in a gated apartment community, near a freeway in Irvine. The place looks like an over-sized Taco Bell with a pool. He and his wife have to work four jobs just to make ends meet.

My old buddy Bob is King of the Hill on an overlook near Apple Valley. He couldn't afford the cost of living in Brea any longer so he got out. It was a short visit, but it was sure great to see them.

Brea, once a quaint little burg for wildcats, has morphed into a fast paced place I've no desire to visit again. After a tour of Brea, I started driving to Yorba Linda, but it is all wall to wall houses and strip malls. Gone are all of the fruit and avocado orchards that put the "Orange" in Orange County. Now everything looks like it's designed by Taco Bell/Disneyland Architects. I got disgusted and turned around. I never made it to Yorba Linda.

Illegal immigrants are way out of hand and the citizens of the state are paying dearly for it. Our country will soon become part of the "Great American Union" before long. We'll either be rich individuals or somebody's slave at the rate we're going.